


cotyledon

by ArgylePirateWD



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Flora & Fauna, Androids, F/F, Magical Pregnancy, Other, Plant pregnancy, Robots, robot pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 04:14:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19055023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgylePirateWD/pseuds/ArgylePirateWD
Summary: The Vines were known for inducing pregnancies in humans during the Vine mating seasons. That's why robots like Seventeen Thousand were sent out to harvest when the Vines were mating. It's not much of a stretch for Seventeen Thousand to imagine she's pregnant.But it's only her imagination, right?





	cotyledon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marie_L](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/gifts).



This should be impossible.

Seventeen Thousand is made of inorganic material and code. Her insides are filled with silicon chips, copper wires, plastic tubing, a steel skeleton. There is no organic material within her abdomen, no protein and flesh in her body like her human counterparts. She should not be detecting a pulsing, expanding sphere of warmth deep in the soft space of her belly.

But something has changed within her. Ever since that night in the Vines on Planet MXI, she has felt...different. She should not feel different. Her programming changes every now and then, when Admin patches her code, but her form is only ever altered when a part breaks down. Every diagnostic test she has run shows her hardware is functioning at optimum levels. No overheating. No anomalies.

So why is there a new warmth in the depths of her abdomen? She prods at the space below her navel, seeking the strange mass, but finds nothing amiss. How odd.

From her analyses of human behavior, she knows a human would likely pass the feeling off as their imagination, but Seventeen Thousand does not have an imagination. Unless one of the updates gave her one.

Yes, that is probably it. Admin is always increasing her capacity for experiencing human-like emotions, and the Vines are known for implanting pregnancies in humans during the Vine mating seasons. That is why robots like Seventeen Thousand are sent out to harvest the panacea fruits when the Vines are mating.

As pregnancy is carried within the human belly, and the Vines touched her in the same intimate manner they do the biological life forms, it is not much of a stretch to think that she is imagining herself to be pregnant. An illogical conclusion for her to make, perhaps, but hardly the greatest leap of logic.

Pregnancy. Why is there the faintest glimmer of something akin to hope, she wonders, when she thinks the word? Why does she almost hope that there is a life growing within her? Why do her simulations keep coming back to pregnancy, showing her with a warm little life blossoming within, moving and growing, filling her, stretching her slim belly to its limit? Why does the strange weight feel so oddly pleasant?

She should speak with Admin about the matter in the morning. In the meantime, she resumes working on slicing the panacea fruits. Her hand strays absently to that warmth in her belly throughout the night.

* * *

Standby Mode is the closest equivalent to sleep that her kind experiences. Admin puts Seventeen Thousand into it to run the diagnostic tests. With no responsibilities to attend to, Seventeen Thousand lets her mind drift like a dream.

That night comes back to her, vivid and strong. The comfortable air of Admin's laboratory is replaced by the humid heat of the Vine Forest. Night birds whistle and chirrup, insects hum their buzzing songs. Old leaves crunch beneath her feet.

She can smell the Vines, their heady green scent, cut grass tinged with something like a sea breeze, though they are many miles from the nearest ocean. The sweetness of their mating aroma is heavy on the summer air, like honeysuckle and mangoes and coconut, musky, impossibly alluring. She pauses to inhale, and the fragrance sinks deep within her wiring. She drinks it in again, savoring it, tasting it on her tongue.

But she has work to do.

Velvet soft emerald leaves and vines caress her as she steps deeper into the moonlit forest. Vines tug at her arms and legs and torso, gentle, compelling. Humans say the Vines seem to whisper in their heads as they pass through, begging them to stop. Seventeen Thousand is immune to this, but the Vines try to draw her closer just the same. She ignores their attempted siren call as she plucks the crimson panacea fruits from their stems and places them in her basket, as easily as she ignores the sticky red juices trickling down her fingers.

And then she trips. A stray root from a nearby tree sends her tumbling, but unlike her basket, she does not hit the ground. The Vines catch her easily and pull her to her feet.

That is when she makes her mistake. She has been trained to be unfailingly polite, and she says, "Thank you."

To the single-minded Vines, auditory acknowledgment is consent. They hoist her effortlessly into the air, cradling her in an elaborate hammock of Vines that did not exist seconds ago, and they begin to touch her.

Thick vines slither up the insides of her trousers, oddly tantalizing as they creep up her long legs. Her Pleasure Module flares to life. Thin tendrils slip down the V at the neck of her shirt, others through the armholes. Some tug her shirt tails from the waistband of her pants and wrap around her belly.

So many vines, some big, others tiny, writhe across her skin, touching her seemingly everywhere at once. Yes, yes, yes, outputs from her Pleasure Module, an almost infinite loop of yes spilling free as the vines touch and probe and seek, seek, seek.

One finds. One of the vines on her left thigh finds the hole between her legs, a remnant of her days as a pleasurebot. Abruptly, the seeking vines go still. Then, they move, all of them in perfect synchronization, all focused on that yielding hole. They fill her, thrusting deeper and deeper, stretching her wide as she moans and moans, as she comes and comes and comes.

The scan ends, and Seventeen Thousand comes back to herself. Admin is standing in front of her, her expression troubled.

"The diagnostic scan found something?" Seventeen Thousand guesses. The warmth in her belly is stronger now, bigger. She presses her hand to it.

"Yes," Admin replies. "I ran every test in my arsenal, ST, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but, well. You're kind of, um, for lack of a better term..." Admin heaves a sigh. "You're pregnant. And, judging by the memories you were experiencing while you were under, it's a Vine. Not sure if I should be offering my congratulations or my condolences, but, uh...yeah."

Pregnant. As Seventeen Thousand had simulated, as she had hoped, there is a life growing within her. A life. She orders her Emotion Module to refrain from making her smile, for now, until she has fully judged Admin's reaction. "I notice you did not remove it."

"No, I didn't." Admin begins unhooking the wires from the exposed ports in Seventeen Thousand's head. The wires retract into the ceiling with a loud spiraling sound, and Admin goes to retrieve Seventeen Thousand's wig from its stand, her purple pumps clicking on the floor. "What we do about this is up to you."

Admin combs her fingers through the wig's ginger hair, gently straightening the long, orange strands winding through her dark-skinned fingers. Oddly, Seventeen Thousand wishes she would do that while the wig is where it belongs, run her fingers through it tenderly like a human head of hair. Seventeen Thousand would try to lean her head against her, and Admin would move to cup Seventeen Thousand's cheek in her soft palm. Then—

"I'm kinda curious about what might happen if a bot tries to carry a Vine pregnancy, to be honest," Admin continues, coming back to Seventeen Thousand's side, interrupting her thoughts. "I've never heard of this happening before." She snaps the port covers built into the wig back into place, and when she steps back, Seventeen Thousand only has to make minor adjustments to the wig to put it to rights.

"There's no literature about it anywhere. I checked while you were out. Most bots follow their programming to a T when they're out there in the Vines." Admin says the last sentence with her plum-painted lips curled into an amused smirk. "But, as usual, I am leaving the final decision on what to do up to you."

That is what she likes most about this Admin. All of the others made her decisions for her, and for all her brethren. This lovely little woman gives them choices. It is obvious what Admin wants. From observations, Seventeen Thousand has concluded that Admin has never met a scientific puzzle that did not fascinate her. Right now, she is no doubt wondering how this pregnancy came to be, and how Seventeen Thousand's man-made body is sustaining an organic process like this.

"I am curious about the outcome of this process as well," Seventeen Thousand says. "I would like to continue the pregnancy."

Admin's brown eyes widen with disbelief, and she gapes at Seventeen Thousand for forty-seven seconds. "You would?" she says, voice rising in pitch, then modulating back to normal when she speaks again. "Huh. Awesome. Very good." She grins, and waves her hands in a small cheer. "Yay!"

Seventeen Thousand cannot stop herself from smiling as well.

"Really looking forward to seeing how this goes," Admin says. "Can you come back tomorrow for some more observation? And, uh, every day? Same time?"

Seventeen Thousand nods, delight welling up inside her, and adds the meetings to her To-Do List function. "I shall see you tomorrow, Admin," she says.

"Awesome!" Admin claps her hands together once. "Unless something changes, of course. Something hinky happens, you come straight to me, no matter what time, understand?"

"Yes," Seventeen Thousand says, with another nod. "I understand."

* * *

The days pass. The warmth in her core expands, pleasantly, as does her belly. Before, her abdomen was what would be called "toned" on a human, a flat plane with simulated lean muscles and only the slightest hint of curvature. Now, it arcs out below her navel, and gets bigger every day. Her hands go to it frequently, cupping the unfamiliar swell, cradling it.

It is a powerful feeling, knowing she is carrying a life. It does not matter how; all that matters is what is. There is a life burgeoning within her inorganic body, and she is responsible for protecting it, nurturing it until it reaches maturity. She refuses to disappoint it, and grows more determined to do well when she senses the first stirrings of movement within.

Admin smiles more with each day of progress.

Each morning at 8:25, Seventeen Thousand leaves her quarters for the five minute trip down white-walled halls to Admin's warm office. She raps on the door at precisely 8:30 each time, and Admin always greets her with a grin and a cheery, "Good morning, ST!"

This time, Admin says, "Wow, you're getting so big!" bouncing on her heels as she starts up the visual scan. On a screen, there is a what looks like a knotted bundle of rope, only it's moving, the squirming of its tendrils consistent with the movement Seventeen Thousand feels.

"Speed of growth is consistent with a typical Vine pregnancy," Admin continues. "Should be fully matured and ready to release into the wild in about six weeks."

There is an unpleasant twinge of sensation in Seventeen Thousand's chest at the mention of release. As her hand strays to her belly, she identifies the feeling as a mixture of regret and unhappiness. Completely illogical. She cannot raise a Vine to maturity in a space station. The results would be catastrophic, both for station and Vine.

And she should not be capable of forming any sort of attachment to this seedling within her. She should not be capable of forming emotional attachments like this at all.

"Have you updated my Emotion Modules recently?" she asks.

"Yes," Admin replies, as she starts putting away the equipment. "I am constantly trying to improve the Human Emotion capabilities of you and your fellow androids. Why?" She casts a glance over her shoulder, eyes worried. "Do you not like it?"

"It is a bit...strong," Seventeen Thousand replies, and Admin's frown deepens. Seventeen Thousand feels the strangest urge to try to smooth it away, to trace her fingers, or perhaps her lips, over Admin's dark skin and request that she smile again instead. Admin's smiles are so beautiful, and her skin looks so soft. A new warmth suffuses Seventeen Thousand's body. Fondness, according to her analysis. She is growing fond of Admin. "Have you programmed me to like you?"

Admin looks horrified at the suggestion. "I would never," she insists. "I think it's important that all sentient beings have physical and mental autonomy, especially retired pleasurebots such as yourself. Any opinions you have of me—whether they're positive, negative, or neutral—should be your own.

"Why?" There is a shy curl to Admin's full lips, a hint of her usual lovely smile as she comes to Seventeen Thousand's side again. "Do you like me?"

"I do," Seventeen Thousand replies. "I think you are very kind, very beautiful. I want to see you happy." Admin smiles. "You are loveliest when you are happy."

Admin ducks her head, smiling more fully. "Thank you," she says. "You are quite lovely yourself."

"Yes," Seventeen Thousand says. "I was designed to be." Every inch of her was predetermined—the creamy shade of her skin and the number of freckles upon it, the length and shape of her body, all five feet and ten point two inches of it, the gingery red of her hair.

But there's something more profound about the beauty of Admin, the confluence of billions of biological accidents coloring her brown skin, curving her wide hips and plump belly and lush breasts, curling her short black hair. Admin wasn't designed to have a brain that is as fluent in the language of machines as it is in human speech. Admin wasn't built to be pretty, smart, kind, brilliant. Admin wasn't _built_ to be anything. But she _is,_ and Seventeen Thousand is immensely grateful to biology for that.

Sometimes, often, she wishes she were a biological accident herself. Perhaps that is why she is so fascinated by the tiny life unfurling inside her. Growing life is a taste of _being_ life. A disconnected part of her is alive, squirming and growing in a little sphere tucked in amidst the tubing and wiring and steel.

The life pushes out, like the fetal kicks she's heard about, and she presses her hand to the spot. It does it again, thrusting against her palm, and she grins.

"Is it moving?" Admin asks, and, at Seventeen Thousand's confirmation, she quietly says, "May I feel it?" It somehow seems more profound than a request born of Admin's scientific curiosity.

"Of course you may," Seventeen Thousand says, and captures Admin's hand when she reaches out, then guides it to her belly. The vine within squirms in response, pushing at the weight of Admin's warm palm, and Admin grins.

"Oh my goodness," Admin says, her awe lighting up Seventeen Thousand's Pleasure Module with a warm glow. "That is _so cool._ "

Admin's skin is so warm, Seventeen Thousand thinks, so soft. She smells lovely, like vanilla and jasmine and human, far better than the sweetness of the mating Vines. What would her deep purple lipstick taste like, Seventeen Thousand wonders, what would her lips feel like?

She decides she wants to know. Following Admin's lead, Seventeen Thousand asks, "May I kiss you, Admin?"

"Leslie," Admin corrects. "Call me Leslie. And yes, you may kiss me."


End file.
